


A Tale Set In A Place Where They Sell The Hot Drink That Is Made From A Bean

by AxeMeAboutAxinomancy



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coffee Shops, First Kiss, Flirting, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy/pseuds/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lightweight AU set in a coffee shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale Set In A Place Where They Sell The Hot Drink That Is Made From A Bean

**Author's Note:**

> For lolcari's prompt "AU Coffee shop!" with lots and lots of help wantonly stolen from bitterbarista.com.

"Welcome to the Flight Deck!"

The owner's son was way too robust in his boosterism. The beans were way too robust in their roasting. And the head barista worked for free, just because he loved coffee so. Damn. Much. It was absolutely all he cared about. He even liked coffee ice cream.

"I don't want the broken cookie," whined a customer, and Douglas looked her in the eye, smiled winningly, and broke every cookie one by one.

There was an unspoken rule at the Flight Deck - well, there were plenty of spoken ones, but the unspoken one was, you didn't get between Douglas and something that he wanted. Not if you didn't want all the stirring sticks crazy glued together and the empty glue tube in your employee locker. Or perhaps a sudden rash of subscriptions to embarrassing magazines in your name. Nothing unseemly, mind you. Nothing pornographic. Just... embarrassing. Nocturnal Incontinence Awareness Monthly, for example. Halitosis and You. Overly discreet looking envelopes from aggressively unspecified 'testing services'.

"Oh no, it's totally _fine_ if you're short a few quid. The prices are really just _suggestions_."

Douglas was a bit of a criminal mastermind, and the only reason he had to work in a coffee shop was, it was the only way to get near Martin. The world should thank Martin. If it weren't for him, Douglas would be in the Evil League of Evil, and then where would we all be?

Unfortunately, this also got him near Arthur, whose abilities in cock blocking were positively terrifying. You could send him on an errand clear across town, asking him for books on bears or Timbuktu, and no sooner would he be on his way and the _tiniest_ progress made in flirting with Martin and in, oh, say, cornering Martin up against the espresso machine, but Arthur would be back at the speed of light with lots of facts already memorised to talk talk talk talk _talk_ about for the rest of the day. And then just when that was finally subsiding, Martin would be off to his paying job, as a man with a van, Arabicus Removals.

And Douglas would look at Arthur and wonder, _Does he even know he's doing it? Does he actually want Martin for himself, or is he just a natural spoilsport?_ Arthur seemed devoted to fun in all forms, so it couldn't be the latter. He must be interested too. It must be a _scheme_.

Carolyn's presence was always a mixed blessing. Her motto was, she wanted the customers to feel welcome... And just slightly afraid. There wasn't a moment's rest under her watchful eye, yet her blazing setdowns of customers were joys to observe.

"No sir, we do not serve soy eggnog. Perhaps to save time I should add that we don't serve unicorn milk, either."

"Madam I am 100% certain that is not a service dog. Because you are carrying it in your purse."

"You didn't tip? And then the wi-fi cut out? How strange."

Martin was the fussy one. He needed things to be just right. His efforts at latte art were always clumsy. You couldn't tell his hearts from his kitty cats. But he remembered every recipe. You didn't need to look it up to remember what all was in a Miami Vice, you needed only to ask Martin.

But he did rather like to pull rank on the customers.

"I don't mean to offend you, but you said 'expresso', so I figured we were just kind of just saying whatever we wanted."

"Were you trying to knock over _everything_ on the condiments bar? Because you missed that last... wait, no, you got it."

"I mean, at _some_ point it makes sense for me to just give you the bottle of vanilla syrup with a straw."

Douglas loved it when he did this. It was adorable. Bitchy and adorable. Yet perversely it drove him to greater efforts of wrongdoing, just to balance the universe. He did a surprisingly brisk trade in baked goods on the side. He was good at stealing pastries, very good, though with type 2 diabetes he'd had to give up eating them years ago. It was for the best. Even the everything bagels made promises they couldn't possibly keep.

One commotion later:

Arthur, covered with foam, said weakly, "Spilled her entire drink and then just disappeared! She was like a ninja! A terrible, terrible ninja."

"You know, Arthur," Martin said, offering paper towel after paper towel, meticulously detaching each one from the roll along its designated perforations, "a coffee shop doesn't really _need_ a greeter."

"Yes it does! Of course it does. Hello and welcome to the Flight Deck!"

"Hello, Arthur."

It was Carolyn's boyfriend Herc, tanned from a bean-buying trip to Costa Rica. Douglas knew Martin longed to do this task himself, but could not bear to bring himself to leave the Flight Deck for that long.

Carolyn was as prickly with him as ever - Douglas could tell she thought it would be unlucky to let the universe see she cared, lest it all blow up in her face - but smug old Herc was as smooth and unruffled as a Slayer's Watcher and took all attacks in stride. He escorted not only Carolyn but, wonder of wonders, Arthur as well, out to attend some sort of concert - and Douglas was alone with Martin.

Pity the cafe suddenly overflowed with a throng of customers, a bunch of idiot cosplaying fans of that latest in the long line of utter crap 'Camelot' movies. Singing a song about a dragon. So loudly that you couldn't hear the throaty glory of Nina Simone from Douglas' iPod plugged into the cafe speakers.

There was only one obvious solution: to blow up the espresso machine. (Arthur had named it 'Gertie' - nobody but himself could ever remember why, and asking him questions of this sort was a mistake of the first order, as he named _everything_ , and there was inevitably a shaggy-dog tale behind every name.)

Of course, if he sacrificed Gertie, there would be no more Flight Deck. Carolyn couldn't possibly afford another espresso machine.

So Douglas did the next best thing: activated the microwave and the blender and toaster all at once, blowing the fuse. And: Blackout! While Martin was in the back with a torch, Douglas was out front with the keys, seeing the disappointed throng of knights on their way back out to the parking lot. Vague promises may have been made about cleaving prices in twain on their next visit.

The door was locked and the sign turned to CLOSED when the lights came back on. Some of the knights turned back hopefully, but Douglas pulled down the shade.

"Douglas? What are you doing? Where are all the customers?"

"We're closed."

"What? Why?"

"Staff meeting."

"But I'm the one who calls staff meetings!"

"Then you can feel free to lead while we dance."

"While we - what?"

And then, a sort of a little gasp,

"Douglas!"

"This is okay...?"

"Well - "

Not hearing a 'no', Douglas didn't press for one.

They weren't dancing really, of course. You shouldn't picture them dancing. Though there _was_ romantic music ('What More Can I Say') and the lights were low. Douglas had nudged the dimmer when he put the knights out.

Martin's back was to the counter, and Douglas was very much invading his personal space. Martin smelled nice. Mostly of coffee, of course. But (and Douglas was not ever, ever going to tell him this) Martin, for all he was short and silly and self conscious, gave off the pheromones of an alpha male. Not all the time, of course. Just... sometimes. When you caught him at the right moment, in the right mood. When he forgot not to be confident. Like right now.

Martin's hands were on Douglas' hips, which was very promising.

"We're alone now," Douglas purred. "Do you want to keep it to just flirting, Martin? Or would you like a little more?"

"Flirting? Have I been - "

"Well. I have. So what'll it be? Is it _stop_ or _go?"_

"How about - _wait?"_

Siiiigh. That was _stop_ , of course, really. But gracefully was the only way out of it. He let go and leaned back, trying to keep his smile on. Martin looked surprised. Didn't let go.

"Really, just wait," Martin said. "I know you like to feel like you're getting away with things, but, but, just, this needs to not be a joke, all right. Or part of a bet with someone. Or some kind of scheme I can't even imagine until you feel like explaining it."

Douglas was trying to put on his injured face, but it wasn't sticking.

"No scheme, Martin. No bet, no joke. I really do like you. Is that so hard to fathom?"

"Yes, it is," Martin said.

Well, what on earth was Douglas supposed to say to that?

He kissed Martin then, without any sort of introductory lip work to ease into things. He set his kiss to Stun and gave it his best.

Martin seemed to be fathoming it now. His response was equal parts enthusiasm and hesitation - these added up, in Douglas' mind, to inexperience, and wasn't that splendid though. Really provoking. And oh God that funny little noise he made when Douglas' teeth and tongue crashed into the side of his neck. His fingers flexed in the fabric of Douglas' shirt, holding him close, wordlessly insisting _don't stop._

There were still some knights lingering in the parking lot. Really? Was it so hard to find a Starbucks? Time to go to the back room.

But Martin didn't want to go in there. Too sordid, probably, though he didn't say so. He just started to bluster about how they should reopen the cafe and get back to work and Maybe Later.

But he was half in the trap now and his pupils were dilated now and he was giving off that mouth watering scent and Douglas still had the power to save this.

"Observe," he said, showing Martin a certain key on his keyring.

"Is that - ?"

"It is."

It was the key to the upstairs apartment. Carolyn claimed it was just storage up there, but the fact was she had a love nest - as no one was safe from Arthur's cock blocking. That much, everybody but Arthur knew. Arthur had been led to believe the upstairs was haunted.

"How did you get it??"

Douglas' acquisition of said key would take a whole separate story.

"Never mind that now. You know she can't admit to having a bed up there because Arthur knowing about it would ruin it for her. She'd never have a moment's peace for a little piece."

"I _have_ always wanted to see it," Martin says, may all the gods and pixies bless him.

So they discovered that Carolyn and Herc enjoyed not only a luxurious little bower with almost infinitely high-thread-count cotton sheets, but also a startling breadth of interests in the bedroom, best not described. No wonder they didn't want Arthur to interrupt. Not that anyone would, but - really.

"Oh my God," said Martin.

"Yyyyes," said Douglas, his voice a reluctant slow crawl.

There was a long silence.

"Your place...?" said Martin, hopefully.

"With pleasure."

He stole some lube, though, on the way out.

**Author's Note:**

> I worked in a place, years ago, in a weird old factory building, where it was rumoured that the boss had a bed in a hidden room upstairs for banging his right-hand woman. It seemed... possible.
> 
> Oh, what is a Miami Vice? As found [here](http://en.ilovecoffee.jp/posts/view/54): it's Americano on the bottom, Cubano coffee in the middle, and hot water with sugar in it on the top. I've never heard of it before myself. I needed a rare oddball drink for Martin to know, equivalent to what aircraft type KLM added in the winter of 1948.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Tale Set In A Place Where They Sell The Hot Drink That Is Made From A Bean](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3253853) by [AxeMeAboutAxinomancy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy/pseuds/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy)




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